teen health

ByMadeleine Lefranc |August 20, 2018

The teen pregnancy rate is at a record low in many states, but especially in Connecticut. Connecticut was ranked 50th in 2015 for teen birth rates, age 15 to 19, reports the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Pregnancy rates for teens have been declining for decades, and have gone down 75 percent from 1991 to 2015. Recently, from 2014 to 2015, the teen pregnancy rate dropped 13 percent. The cause of this sharp decline in teen birth rates could be attributed to a number of things.

While we’ve been engrossed in the Republicans’ umpteenth attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the Trump administration quietly has stopped funding 80-some teenage pregnancy prevention programs around the country, including a highly successful one in Hartford. The Trump administration has cut nearly $214 million in grants. Those grants were awarded under President Obama, and were supposed to have ended in 2020. Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services let grantees know that the funds would end in 2018—two years earlier than promised. The cut was first reported by Reveal, a product of The Center for Investigative Reporting.

Out of work and addicted to the anti-anxiety medication Klonopin, Heather Delaney, a licensed practical nurse from Stratford, checked herself into Bridgeport Hospital in 2011 when she could no longer handle withdrawal without medical help.